Canada’s big issue in Sochi? Mediocre goaltending

Cam Cole, Vancouver Sun columnist08.26.2013

Goalie Carey Price makes a stop during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men's team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntoshJeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Goalie Roberto Luongo, centre, from Montreal, Que., watches the ball during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Sidney Crosby, left, from Cole Harbour, N.S., and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, from Montreal, Que., laugh during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Head coach Mike Babcock, from Saskatoon, Sask., directs a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men's team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntoshJeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Patrice Bergeron, from Sillery, Que., waits for a drill during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Head coach Mike Babcock, second from left, from Saskatoon, Sask., directs players, left to right, Dion Phaneuf, from Edmonton, Alta., Jonathan Toews, from Winnipeg, Man., and goalie Roberto Luongo, from Montreal, Que., during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Ryan Getzlaf, left, from Regina, Sask., gets a playful shove from goalie Roberto Luongo, from Montreal, Que., during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Gloves and a stick sit on a boarded up ice surface waiting for players during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Rick Nash, from Brampton, Ont., runs with the ball during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Dion Phaneuf, from Edmonton, Alta., runs during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Ryan Getzlaf, from Regina, Sask., reacts during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Sidney Crosby, from Cole Harbour, N.S., runs during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Head coach Mike Babcock, from Saskatoon, Sask., gives instruction during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Head coach Mike Babcock, fourth from left, from Saskatoon, Sask., goes over a drill with players during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Players take to the boarded up ice surface during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Sidney Crosby, right, from Cole Harbour, N.S., and Jordan Staal, from Thunder Bay, Ont., jog off the boarded up ice surface during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Players run drills during a ball hockey training session at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Roberto Luongo, of Montreal, Que., speaks to reporters at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Head coach Mike Babcock, of Saskatoon, Sask., speaks to reporters at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Roberto Luongo, of Montreal, Que., speaks to reporters at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Patrice Bergeron, right, of Sillery, Que., and Rick Nash, of Brampton, Ont., speak to reporters at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Rick Nash, of Brampton, Ont., speaks to reporters at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Players, left to right, Rick Nash, Patrice Bergeron, Shea Weber, Roberto Luongo, and Sidney Crosby speak to reporters at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Head coach Mike Babcock, of Saskatoon, Sask., speaks to reporters at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Players, left to right, Rick Nash, Patrice Bergeron, Shea Weber, Roberto Luongo, and Sidney Crosby speak to reporters at the Canadian national men’s team orientation camp in Calgary, Alta., on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2013.Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Related

CALGARY — Carey Price has lived the best and worst that comes with playing in the cauldron of boiling, roiling emotions that is Montreal. There is no negative question he hasn’t heard.

Corey Crawford was a playoff punchline when it was suggested that a goalie with his lack of distinction could get an invite to Canada’s Olympic camp ... then he won the Stanley Cup with Chicago, and the laughter wasn’t quite so loud.

Phoenix backstop Mike Smith was waived, sent to the minors, eventually allowed to walk by Tampa Bay ... yet the general manager who had no room for him there, Team Canada’s executive director Steve Yzerman, invited him here.

Washington’s Braden Holtby’s selection? “I was pretty shocked actually. It kind of came out of nowhere,” he said, which was kind of how many hockey fans felt when they saw his name on the list.

And Roberto Luongo ... no need to bore you with the details. He rose, he fell, he lost his job, he couldn’t be traded. He tweeted a lot of funny stuff in an effort to stay sane, and here he is: the best of a bruised, battered lot of prospective puck-stoppers for a Canadian Olympic team that appears to be absolutely loaded up front and on the blue line but has a potentially gaping hole in goal.

There is no tactful way to ask why Canadian goaltending, at this particular juncture in history, is so mediocre. But it is.

Marty Brodeur is the past, and of those we thought were the future, Marc-Andre Fleury has fallen off the edge of the Earth, Cam Ward is stuck on a loss machine in Carolina and Price has been a human roller-coaster.

It didn’t used to be this way. For generations, we rolled blithely from one star to another to fill our international needs: from Ken Dryden and Tony Esposito to Grant Fuhr to Patrick Roy to Brodeur, with brief detours to Eddie Belfour or Curtis Joseph or Bill Ranford, and it was never an issue.

Now? If the cold-eyed sizer-uppers in the peanut gallery are correct, it could be a big issue for Canada in Sochi, not quite six months from now.

"Obviously the last couple of years have been hard on Roberto but I think our goaltending is as good as anybody else's,” said defenceman Dan Boyle. “The difference between the top goalies on other (international) teams is so minimal.

"I think the media's talking about this because we've been so used to having Brodeur for all those years and Patrick before that and all of a sudden we don't have one of those Hall of Fame stud guys."

But that’s the whole point.

Admittedly, Canada has been spoiled rotten, but not lately. Even in Vancouver, where the team won Olympic gold, Brodeur had to be replaced by Luongo during the tournament, and not with a lot of confidence.

The world junior teams have suffered with spotty work in the nets of late, too, prompting Hockey Canada to start re-thinking the way goaltenders are trained and developed and nurtured in this country.

As many people as praise the way the butterfly method — close the five-hole, make yourself big, let the puck hit you — has revolutionized the position are now starting to wonder whether it would be a better idea to have goaltenders be athletes first, technicians later.

“I think what we’re creating is these little robots that in a practice setting look phenomenal, they can do all the things technically correct. But when when the puck doesn’t go where it’s supposed to go, you need to have the athletic component to it, you need them to be athletic and stop the puck,” says Ranford, the goaltending coach of the L.A. Kings, whose star Jonathan Quick is maybe the most athletic goalie in the NHL.

Ranford is one of a handful of former NHL goalies, including Rick Walmsley, Sean Burke and Fred Brathwaite, who formed part of a working group Hockey Canada commissioned to study better ways to certify coaches and teach the position than the somewhat haphazard, volunteer-oriented, hockey-dad methods that pervade the sport at the grassroots level in Canada.

In Finland, young goaltenders receive certified coaching virtually from the start, and in Sweden, they have taken it one step further, paying the goaltending coaches who tutors their young prospects. Not surprisingly, the Finns and Swedes have begun producing scads of NHL-ready goalies.

“But you know what, there’s so many good goaltenders in the league now, not just Canadian guys,” Smith said Monday, after the 45 players at camp were split into two groups for practice in running shoes on a fiberglas surface: the world’s most expensive ball hockey team.

“I think we all take pride in it, that Canada has always had great goaltending. Obviously, Lou’s the guy that’s been around the longest, but all the guys that are here have proven to be top-notch goalies in the league.

“I just think all the goalies throughout the whole world have gotten better. Used to be Canada had good goalies and no one else really could compete with that. Goalies have gotten better right across the board, and I don’t think Canada has dropped off, I think we’ve just ... there hasn’t been (italics) that guy (end italics), but I think Roberto’s done pretty well for himself.”

“Honestly, I don’t think any one of us listens to that (criticism),” said Crawford. “It’s just an opinion. Maybe because there’s so many great players up front and on D, the goaltending gets overshadowed a little bit.”

“It’s wide open like everybody’s been saying,” said Price, who was probably Canada’s frontrunner for the starting job until he and the Habs melted down at the end of last season. “Everybody has an equal opportunity to earn their spot. They’re going to take the guy that’s on top of his game and who they feel gives them the best chance of winning.”

Team Canada head coach Mike Babcock, publicly at least, is standing by his men.

“I would say to you that the other countries had a better last three months of the season than our country did in net,” he said Monday. “Let's watch the first three months of this season.

“One of these goalies will be real good. And one of these goalies will be hot going in, that everyone will know who's playing goal for Canada.”

There’s really no other way. Whatever changes Hockey Canada tries to make in the development system might not produce results at the elite level for 10 years or more.

“Anybody,” said Babcock. “There's lots of players that aren't here that probably might end up with an opportunity. Play good. I read or hear, 'Oh this guy feels snubbed.' So what? Do something about it. The great thing about life is you get to control what happens to you the majority of the time. Do something about it if you're not here.”

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